3+ Ways to Help Writers Recognize and Celebrate Their Growth

I’ve always enjoyed our end-of-the-semester portfolio in College Prep Senior English. It’s where students typically celebrate their growth as writers. However, with a This-Is-the-Winter-That-Never-Ends leading to loss of instructional days compounded by fewer days for seniors in the spring, my colleague and I knew we couldn’t maintain the portfolio in its current form.

The solution?

So, we opted for celebration days for our writers to reflect on their writing journeys this semester. Their reflections will address the four key concepts of our course: process, purpose, audience, and collaboration. Inspired by Jennifer Serravallo’s The Writing Strategies Book and a few ideas of our own (sometimes constraints really do elicit creative problem solving!), we selected three ways to celebrate our writers, spread out over the last three classes. Each selection involves preparation and presentation (process and product, right?!).

This chart contains the nutshell version of each day. On day 3, we’ll use FutureMe to have them craft their emails to their future selves.

How will the celebrations go? Why will this matter, right now, in May?

Oh, I think that the students will benefit from feedback from an intended audience; I think they’ll laugh while they toast their pieces; I think making their process visible (as Shana discussed in Artifacts of Our Learning) will reinforce their learning; I think–given some of the relationships built in the classroom–that they’ll enjoy leaving their fellow collaborators love notes; I think that reflection at this threshold moment could help my seniors grasp the significance of their learning journey.

Through conferring with Nathan over the last two weeks, I realized that celebration–feeling happy about an occasion and engaging in fun related to it–is not enough. Nathan reminded me that my students also need recurrent recognition–admiration and respect for accomplishments. Yes, I recognize and celebrate strengths in student writing regularly via written feedback. Yes, I do recognize and celebrate application and growth while conferring. But not as consistently as I should. And, I’m certainly not doing a good job of prioritizing recognition and celebration as a whole class community of writers. If I recognized and celebrated successes more, would Nathan have said to me (while working on his final writing for the term), “Can you help me with this so I can produce the kind of writing you’re looking for?” Instead of the kind of good writing needed for the situation, he was still aiming to produce writing to please his teacher. What if I had shown greater recognition–with him while conferring–of progress before this moment? Would our impending celebration matter more? Yep.

Through the rest of my conferences with Nathan, I tried to shift the conversation toward his audience. I pulled in mentor texts. I modeled some revisions I would make to voice and imagery. And over the next several days and a few conferences later, his piece began to transform, leading to this: “You know, Nathan, I think this has the possibility of being your best piece all year if you keep working at it.” I’m sure you might guess what I’m celebrating here: yes, Nathan sat up straighter, smiled wider, and, ultimately, revised more. He began really crafting. Later he reflected, “It’s like with the other pieces we really had to learn the basics. And this is getting into what really matters.” His words show his own recognition–his understanding and respect–for how his skills built in the course. There’s something to celebrate! And the genesis of this larger realization might be that small moment, that moment of affirmation.

Big celebrations are important. But life is made in the small moments. And, next year I want to consistently recognize and celebrate the good times (anyone else flashback to ’80’s weddings?)–big and small, in big and small ways.

Next year I will . . . try to have students share lines from their notebooks more. I’ll probably need to schedule it!

Next year I will . . . try to make their successes visible. Maybe I’ll try Penny Kittle’s and Kelly Gallagher’s Beautiful Words Google Doc idea.

Next year I will . . . have my students reflect on and admire moments of growth during the celebrations portion of our weekly class meeting.

Next year I will . . .

It’ll be a dedication to celebration to last throughout the year (my apologies to Kool & the Gang.).

Kristin Jeschke’s life was made in the not-so-small moments of her children’s births. Happy Mother’s Day to mothers of all kinds, everywhere! She also needs someone to get married soon so she can dance with her mom and her aunties to Kool & the Gang’s “Celebration.” Follow Kristin on Twitter @kajeschke.